Hollywood cinema has dealt with the appearance of Facebook and other social media platforms in several films over the past 10 years, which have examined the extent of what communication technology has become for the masses of the world.

In the decade since David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin won the Academy Award for "The Social Network," thrillers and horror movies have tended to be influenced by an important fact: that Through the Internet, anyone can lie about who they are and appear completely different from the truth.

Nevertheless, the means of communication also inspired filmmakers towards innovative forms of art that fit the current technology era, and not only revolve around it, but also revolve around human emotions: sadness and nostalgia, envy, obsession and insecurity, covered by several works from which we chose these five films.

 Main stream

Written and directed by Gia Coppola (in 2021), the film asks if the media's claims are plausible in reality.

The film tells the story of Frankie (Maya Hawke), who makes what her mother calls "weird videos" on YouTube, which allows her to meet Link (Andrew Garfield).

Under the supervision of an aspiring content creator (Frankie), a tech-savvy person (Link) becomes a social media superstar.

He also talks about the greater difficulty in capturing accurate images of our lives through mobile screens or computers, and the presence of personalities and stars of the world of communication less moral than they are in reality, and the tendency of these sites to hide the flaws that stars are keen not to highlight.

"The Hater"

This Polish film, released in March 2020, directed by Jan Komasa, completes the series of social media films, but in a different style that does not focus on victims of digital technology.

Komasa takes another side with Thomas Giemsa's "The Agitator" (Masiej Musiowski), where Giemsa transcends all social norms through the digital world.

Gemza is a law student who has been dismissed for plagiarism and is rejected by his girlfriend's family for the same reason, but this moral decline does not bother him, it encourages him to use social media as a tool to manipulate people.

He wanders in the virtual world and invents lie after lie, yet he is not shunned by followers of the media. With every lie and mistake, he gains a wider audience on Facebook, and greater influence in the media.

The Hatter talks about the dialectic of morals and communication, and how mob mentality can manifest itself in real violence through the virtual world.

Searching

The film, directed by Anish Chaganti and released in 2018, throws a different spin on the importance of tapping into the world of social media during the hero's search for his missing daughter.

David Kim despairs after his 16-year-old daughter Margot goes missing, and a traditional police search turns up nothing, so he decides to search the only place he can get to, via Margot's own laptop.

As the anxious father (John Cho) searches for his daughter's virtual world, he discovers more and more things he did not know about her life, so the film comes out with an interesting rhythm between Cho's frantic performance on his daughter and what he discovers in the world of communication.

On the market, this work is considered one of the most successful films in the world of digital communication, as the box office translated it, for a cost of barely more than one million dollars, it achieved more than 75 million.

"Ingrid Goes West"

After her mother's death and a series of self-reversals, Ingrid Thorburn escapes a boring life and finds herself socializing online with Taylor Sloan (Elizabeth Olsen), whom she met on Instagram, so she can make new connections on social networks.

The film revolves around a mentally disturbed young woman whose life turns into an ideal in the virtual world, partly reflected in the real world.

Ingrid leaves Los Angeles for California, and reassembles the Diaspora in a different image from what it was before, provided by the means of communication in which she met her passion and interest, to give herself a better image than her previous version.

The film presents his vision through Ingrid that many - especially celebrities in the media - have become their star on these platforms, not a secondary or essential matter, but has evolved to become a prerequisite in daily life.

The social network

Director David Fincher, his film icon for the world of communication, launched this film in 2010, opening the door to a series of films whose main theme revolves around social platforms.

The work shows what he sees as the embodiment of the meanings of greed and betrayal, these two characteristics that accompanied the emergence of Facebook, and accompanied Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook founder), played by Jesse Eisenberg.

Aaron Sorkin penned a film script, in which Zuckerberg outsmarted his co-stars with overconfidence and bragging rights, exaggerated the director and portrayed the founder as a narcissistic monster driven by smooth performances by actors Andrew Garfield, Brenda Song, and Rooney Mara.

According to critics, the film came out as a rhythmic script that clearly depicted the opposing forces and the extent of the competition that began and continues in the world of digital communication, in addition to showing the gloom and insignificance surrounding Zuckerberg after his dominance, among others, at the helm of the digital social world.